When Schomberg had been made to understand that Mr. Jones's henchman was ready to discuss, in his own words, “this boat of yours, with courses and distances,” and such concrete matters of no good augury to that villainous Swede, he recovered his soldierly bearing, squared his shoulders, and asked in his military manner:
“You wish, then, to proceed with the business?”
Ricardo nodded. He had a great mind to, he said. A gentleman had to be humoured as much as possible; but he must be managed, too, on occasions, for his own good. And it was the business of the right sort of “follower” to know the proper time and the proper methods of that delicate part of his duty. Having exposed this theory Ricardo proceeded to the application.
“I've never actually lied to him,” he said, “and I ain't going to now. I shall just say nothing about the girl. He will have to get over the shock the best he can. Hang it all! Too much humouring won't do here.”
“Funny thing,” Schomberg observed crisply.
“Is it? Ay, you wouldn't mind taking a woman by the throat in some dark corner and nobody by, I bet!”
Ricardo's dreadful, vicious, cat-like readiness to get his claws out at any moment startled Schomberg as usual. But it was provoking too.
“And you?” he defended himself. “Don't you want me to believe you are up to anything?”
“I, my boy? Oh, yes. I am not that gentleman; neither are you. Take 'em by the throat or chuck 'em under the chin is all one to me—almost,” affirmed Ricardo, with something obscurely ironical in his complacency. “Now, as to this business. A three days' jaunt in a good boat isn't a thing to frighten people like us. You are right, so far; but there are other details.”
Schomberg was ready enough to enter into details. He explained that he had a small plantation, with a fairly habitable hut on it, on Madura. He proposed that his guest should start from town in his boat, as if going for an excursion to that rural spot. The custom-house people on the quay were used to see his boat go off on such trips.